1.
Every year I wonder anew: Why is it that on the first night of the year, at the first meal of the year, after we have greeted each other, each one his children, "May the New Year be written and signed," after we have said "May we live" on purpose - the whole family, and the guests too, gather around the lavish holiday table and engage in evil?
We all enthusiastically observe the custom of eating special foods and reciting blessings over them for the New Year (a sacred custom originating in the Gemara), but how much can we dwell on the enemy, on the negative? We eat dates and say with great intention: "May our Father in heaven will that our enemies and our haters and all who seek our harm be cut off." Kerti - "May our enemies and our haters and all who seek our harm be cut off." Silka - "May our haters depart, etc.".
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And that's without the creative wishes that people add, as if God's hand is good upon them, curses that are not written in the Torah (tehina? "May our enemies be victorious," etc.).
And I always didn't understand: Why is it necessary on such a holy and capable night to obsessively deal with our enemies? Can't we just concentrate on the good: on the many privileges like a pomegranate? On the (disgusting) head of the fish and all the beautiful things it symbolizes?
This year I will no longer ask that question. I have disillusioned myself with the concept that life is just an apple in a honeypot. Yes, there are enemies. And they must not be ignored. They are not as deterred as we were told. So we pray that they will be orphaned, that they will be cut off, that they will go away.
Yes, yes, precisely at this moment of opportunity. It is also an act of prayer and, in fact, an act of education. At the beginning of a new year, we teach our children and ourselves that there is evil in the world. And we do not contain it. We wish for its end.
And after seeing in the last weeks of 2014 how beneficial these prayers were, it seems to me that on the night of Rosh Hashanah, which is coming, we will even more intentionally wish these blessings and curses upon the heads of our enemies, our haters, and all who seek our harm.
Have a good year. Let the year begin with its curses!
2.
Last Friday. 12:30 p.m. New York time. We are entering my wife's lecture in Great Neck on Long Island. On the way here, we still had time to be moved by the way Netanyahu chose to end his important speech at the UN: "To the people of Israel and to the soldiers of Israel, I say: Be strong and courageous. 'Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you; he will not fail you or forsake you.".
Whoops. What's going on here? Netanyahu doesn't often mention the sky. He can quote a verse from time to time, but only "neutral" verses. You know, along the lines of "Netzah Yisrael will not lie" or "Am Kalavi will rise." But actually mentioning the Holy One, blessed be He? Unfortunately, that's quite rare for the leader of the believing bloc. He usually does it in times of crisis, after a terrible attack, not against us. Or before elections (not against us). And suddenly he brought up a verse from this week's Torah.
And by the way, he could have interrupted it in the middle: "Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or discouraged because of them." Period. Or more precisely: an exclamation point. Why did he suddenly add "For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you; he will not fail you or forsake you"? Did something happen that we don't know about?
A few minutes later, the commotion begins. The IDF spokesman issues a special statement to the media. And here I had a dilemma: on the one hand, here in the United States, Shabbat is very far from beginning. As mentioned, it is around 12:30 p.m., and there are almost six hours until Shabbat begins. On the other hand, in Israel it has already begun. So, will I sit in New York and watch the IDF spokesman's statement, and then continue with the live broadcasts from Israel, and sign off in the studio on Friday? (Although there is no prohibition against prohibition... and yet). Thank God, I managed to overcome my curiosity and the permits that came to my mind, and I entered Shabbat in New York only with unfounded rumors about Nasrallah's assassination.
But that was the easy part of the story. Think about when we could catch up on news from Israel. It wasn't until two in the morning, Israeli time, that Shabbat began for us. In other words, seven hours after everyone in Israel knew and heard and celebrated, we entered the picture. Luckily, thanks to the first selichot that night, I found people awake in Israel who would tell me about the rumors on Shabbat and the great joy on Shabbat night. I lost.
3.
Then came the selichot at our place. One night, we go to the selichot at the Carlebach-Shol, that old synagogue in Manhattan where Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach himself used to pass before the Ark, and now he is replaced by Yehuda Green, the man with the simple melodies that conquered the Jewish world, with the sweeping delivery, and especially with the breaking heart. In recent years, about a thousand people have come to the service, the place is too small to accommodate, and the selichot has moved to a much larger synagogue on the West Side of Manhattan.
On the way to the Selichot, we are trying to close the gaps, to complete the flood of interpretations and reactions in Israel about the assassination. Trying to distinguish between jokes and reality. After all, when you connect to an event so late, you first receive the jokes on WhatsApp, and then you start scrolling back and understanding what happened. But wait, what are the jokes now? We are still in the initial excitement about the great success of the Air Force, about the wonderful heavenly help, about the great spirit of heroism, after a year that began with such humiliation. A year in which we became "a mockery and a mockery of the nations," and here we are suddenly returning to the status of "light to the nations." "A new Middle East," in a good way.
4.
And the truth is that even without the time difference and the news lag, there is a bit of a mess in the soul. In a moment we will begin to say forgiveness. Forgiveness that was clear to be said this year out of pain. The line "crawling and trembling from the day of your coming, sick as a virgin from the passing of your burden" is already playing in my head, which Yehuda Green, the man with the broken heart, will soon say. But honestly? Our heart is in a different place. The heart is full of gratitude. It is not so broken tonight. Nothing is whole from a heart after an assassination.
And on the other hand, the High Holy Days are approaching, and there is so much to pray for after such a difficult year, and in the midst of such a difficult war. Soldiers, kidnapped, wounded, evacuated. Land entry into Lebanon. And yes, there is also fear of actually going back in time to this time of year after everything that has happened.
So what do we do with this mental jet lag?
5.
Yehuda Green approached the pillar, and even before wrapping himself in a tallit, he began, as is his custom, with several melodies in preparation for the Selichot. And here he brought a light that not only suited the time and place but also gave meaning to everything that has passed, and is passing, upon us these days.
He sang the very old and decidedly unfashionable Carlebach song, "Israel trusts in the Lord, his help and his defense." But he began with the opening words, as Rabbi Shlomo sang in his time in the recording of the performance before Jewish students at Brooklyn College in the United States, in January 1974, a few months after the end of the Yom Kippur War.
And so Yehuda Green sang to the words of Rabbi Shlomo (free translation from English):
""You know, friends,
I tell you the truth,
For me and for you it is still Yom Kippur,
It's still Yom Kippur...
Until there is peace in the world,
Until there is peace in Jerusalem,
It's still Yom Kippur,
"It's still Yom Kippur.".
And here the famous melody begins, but not in rhythm, as you know it, but as a personal call, almost a whisper:
""Israel trusts in the Lord, Israel trusts in the Lord...
Do you know, friends?
Sometimes it makes me sad,
Sometimes it makes me happy,
Israel has no friends in the world.
The Holy Land, the Holy People of Israel, alone.
A people alone will dwell.
"But what do we have?".
And here comes a loud call, a burning proclamation:
""Israel, trust in God! Israel, trust in God! We have one friend in heaven!".
Then Green began to sing the song. At first slowly, then quickly, loudly, confidently, resolutely: "Israel! Israel! Israel! Trust in the Lord!".
6.
I know the song from my childhood, of course. But the truth? I never delved too deeply into it. After all, Carlebach has much deeper songs. This song is from the "Make Me, Make Me" genre. A very nice song, but I didn't find any depth in it. I didn't look for it either.
But on this Sabbath evening of the first selichot, with the opening that connects to the Yom Kippur War, and actually to the Simchat Torah War, because we, as Carlebach sang 50 years ago on that campus in New York, are still on Simchat Torah. And we have no friends in the world. Look how the whole world won't even let us defend ourselves. And on those campuses in New York they shout "Free Palestine" at Jewish students. We are a people who will live alone. Sometimes it saddens me and sometimes it makes me happy.
This old song not only came to life, 50 years later - it's as if it was written exactly for the first night of Selichot 5744, after such a difficult year, with such good news about the liquidation, with a lot of pain, and a lot of hope, and a lot of fear of where we go from here, what exactly and how we pray.
7.
And suddenly I noticed how much genius there is in this simple song. Rabbi Shlomo took this short verse from the Psalms, which is part of a whole psalm, in which both "the house of Aaron" and "those who fear the Lord" are mentioned, you know, the verse that we say, as a learned man's commandment, every Rosh Chodesh in Hallel - and turned it into a very personal call, literally for every Jew, wherever he is: "Israel, Israel, Israel, trust in the Lord!" A call that becomes a cry. And then into something calming, encouraging, comforting.
And how much we need this reading now, both for assimilated Jewish students in the US who are asking themselves difficult questions in the face of the terrible anti-Semitism of their good friends on campus, also for many Israelis who are returning to their Jewish roots after October 7 because they understand the big story, and also for us, who don't know exactly how to approach the prayers of the High Holy Days after a year like this.
Israel, Israel, Israel, trust in the Lord. You are not alone. No longer will a people dwell alone. You have someone accompanying you from above. Do you hear, Israel?
That's it, now we can start with the apologies.
